American Veterans For Equal Rights (AVER) will present its highest honor, the Leonard Matlovich Medal for Distinguished Service, to United States Navy Senior Chief Special Warfare Operator Kristin Beck.

Senior Chief Petty Officer Beck served 20 years in the Navy, taking part in 13 deployments, including seven combat deployments. Her many decorations include a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star with Valor device. Kristin Beck, who came out as a trans woman in 2013, has become one of the nation’s most prominent leaders in the fight for Transgender Service in the United States Military.

The medal is named in honor of USAF TechSgt Leonard Matlovich who was one of the first gay service members to purposely out himself to the military to fight the ban on LGBT service members. His service in Vietnam earned him a Purple Heart and Bronze Star. He was involuntarily discharged following his public gay declaration. The battle he bravely began ended 37 years later with the ban on gay service was lifted in 2011. Past recipients of the Matlovich Medal include President Barack Obama, Admiral Mike Mullen, Colonel Margarethe Cammermeyer, and gay activist PFC, Dr. Frank Kameny, a World War II veteran and founder of the modern LGBT civil rights movement.

American Veterans For Equal Rights, founded in 1990, is the nation’s LGBT veterans’ service organization advocating for the rights and benefits of LGBT service members and veterans. AVER’s Matlovich Medal will be presented to Senior Chief Beck at the AVER national convention to be held September 20-23, 2018, in Chicago.

For more information on the 2018 AVER convention please visit the website located at https://www.averchicago.org/national-convention/

Atlanta, GA (JUL 26, 2017) – American Veterans for Equal Rights (AVER) is astonished by President Trump’s statements this morning prohibiting transgender Americans from serving our country in the US military. On the very anniversary, July 26, 1948, that President Harry S. Truman issued Executive Order 9981 to end racial segregation in our US military, President Donald J. Trump issues tweets to bar transgender service members from serving in our same US armed forces. Such an incredible twist of fate in history! One opens doors to liberty. One slams them shut.

“The President’s unilateral action concerning transgender service members is insulting to some of our most capable service members and disrespectful to the leadership of our military. Without full consultation, a President who never served our country has taken an action that discriminates without factual foundation. Transgender members are already and have always been part of some of our most combat ready units without difficulty for decades and will continue to be in the future. As long as any soldier, sailor, marine, airman or coast guards man has the physical and mental ability, they must be allowed to serve in the defense of our country.”

Current policies require that transgender recruits must complete gender transition before they can enter the military. Mr. Trump is simply denying entry into the military to capable male and female volunteers no different from any other man or woman. The citizens of the United States require a military governed by carefully considered policies and not by early morning tweet storms from a President who neither understands the current policy nor cares about the human cost of defending our nation’s liberty. We defend transgender service members right to serve!

USAF Master Sargent Leah Messer (left with US flag), a 15-year transgender veteran of the United States Air Force, would lose her job if Donald Trump’s tweets become policy.

Our nation has experienced a contentious and divisive election. American Veterans for Equal Rights shares your concern that the rights we fought for and won must now be defended.

AVER fought for the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell which ended the nearly century old ban against open Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual service. LGBT Americans gained national marriage equality, a freedom only dreamed of a decade ago. Our United States military opened combat positions to women, and in only the past month we saw the ban against Transgender service lifted.

AVER shares your concern that these victories are in jeopardy under a new administration hostile to our community. Those who have endured the investigations and disgrace of being discharged from our careers, who have survived the tragedy of AIDS, who have endured the denial of our relationships and the dishonoring of our families and our service, share your fears. We share a common resolve that, WE ARE NOT GOING BACK.?

Last week AVER reached out to the Trump Administration to offer our services as the nation’s LGBT Veterans Service Organization. Like many of you, we are deeply wary of this change, but we must live, and where necessary, fight in this new world. We have a Constitutional obligation to respect the office of President and a moral obligation to ensure the holder of that office is the leader of and for all Americans, not just a few.

We will continue our vigilance. We resolve never to rest as long as our rights are threatened. Our vigilance is not unfounded. Only last week the VA reversed its promise to provide gender correction surgery to heal our transgender veterans.?? Our fear is real. Our fight is not over. We have come this far together. Together, we will defend the liberties we hold so precious, and we will strive to secure them for future generations of LGBT Americans. AVER, locally and nationally, will remain a safe, respectful and supportive place for all of us.

Your service, your skills, and your support, are needed today in this critical mission. Stand with us, and defend our freedoms for our fellow veterans and heroes yet to come. The need is as great now as it has ever been. Thank you for your continued support and alliance.?

On the final day of Pride Month 2016, The United States Department of Defense announced the long anticipated news that patriotic Transgender Americans will now be able to openly choose to volunteer to serve their country. Transgender Americans are twice as likely to volunteer to serve as any other group of Americans, many are currently serving. Now, finally, they will be able to serve without having to hide who they are, in pride of serving our nation.

Nearly all of our allied nations have allowed their transgender citizens to serve starting in the mid-1990s when their bans were lifted on the service of lesbian, gay and bisexual patriots. Israel was the first to lift restrictions and limitations on the service their LGBT citizens, nearly all of whom have always been required to serve, regardless of sexual orientation or gender variance. Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and European nations all included transgender service allowance along with lesbian, gay and bisexual service during the 1990s. Now, America, which taught democracy and equality to much of the world following WWII, has caught up with the wave of full equality for all those who want to courageously step forward to be among our bravest citizens.

Steve Loomis, LTC, US Army Retired, President of American Veterans For Equal Rights, said, “AVER has long supported and encouraged the right of transgender men and women to serve their country openly and with the honor they deserve.?? We strongly support Secretary Carter and his plan for implementing Transgender service while ensuring the ability of our military to effectively perform its mission.”

Evan Young, Major US Army retired, President of Transgender American Veterans Association, said, “This is a historic day in the United States Military. Our nation’s military has stepped up and joined other nations in allowing transgender service members to serve openly. I am proud of the Department of Defense for allowing everyone who meets the standards to serve. We should all be judged on our merits and not on our gender identity.”

We look forward to working with DoD to assist in developing policies and regulations regarding the service and equal benefits of our patriotic volunteers.

An Open Letter?LGBT Veterans Stand with Orlando
America was assaulted early Sunday morning as at least 49 members of our LGBT and allies community in Orlando, Florida were killed and 53 more injured in an eruption of violence against the gay community. “We all hurt because part of our community is in pain. The members of American Veterans for Equal Rights (AVER) served our country to help protect it from senseless terrorism such as this. As veterans and active duty service members we go in harm’s way serving to protect our country, then come home only to be assaulted and cut down in our most important and representative time of the year, Pride Month,” stated Army Vietnam veteran Lieutenant Colonel Steve Loomis, National President of AVER. AVER is America’s first and oldest Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender veterans and active duty service organization.

“In a society where diversity is our destiny and our greatest strength, the hateful and divisive attitudes that have become the hallmark of political and religious rhetoric in recent years must stop. There is no justification for mass murder or those who promote it,” stated AVER President Emeritus Danny Ingram, an Army veteran.

It is an attack on every American and the multi-colored fabric that is the core of who we are as a people. All lives matter, and hateful rhetoric, regardless of how it is justified or camouflaged, ultimately leads to the type of mass murder that we have witnessed in Orlando. We have all lost because of this horrible crime and AVER calls upon every American to question the prejudiced and hurtful attitudes that demonize entire groups of people and ultimately create a destructive rationale that leads to the murder of our fellow citizens.

America succeeds by valuing and respecting the inherent dignity of every human being, not by tearing down or eliminating groups who are different. We are angry veterans as we lost one of our own citizen soldiers in Orlando and angry citizens because the hurt spreads across our country. We join as one in mourning this act of evil against our community and nation. We strengthen our common resolve to build bridges of tolerance and understanding across our country united from sea to sea as our forefathers wished.

As these cowering shadow people encourage hatred and condone violence against American citizens for whatever reason, they violate our rights, our persons and our space. The hatemongering and divisive political and religious rhetoric must stop. Political and religious leaders who encourage intolerance or acts of violence must be held accountable.

It is America’s destiny to be the most diverse society in the history of the world, extending equal rights, equal respect, and equal responsibility to every citizen. To do otherwise is in no way democracy.

Steve Loomis
LTC, EN, U.S. Army (Retired)
National President
American Veterans for Equal Rights

Danny Ingram
SGT, US Army Veteran
National President Emeritus
American Veterans for Equal Rights

I want to personally invite you along with all other American Veterans for Equal Rights members to join me at this spring’s

AVER 25th Anniversary National Convention

in Albuquerque/Santa Fe from 21 April to 24 April 2016!

Now that the holidays are behind us, I encourage each of you to register for our AVER convention.? We are going to have a great convention as we work into AVER’s future and protect the fights we have won.? Maj Gen Patricia Rose, the highest ranking out service member, is our great keynote speaker and Colonel Margerethe Cammermeyer will be presented the Matlovich Award for her service and advocacy on behalf of LGBT veterans and service members.